Murder at Gettysburg (A Miranda Lewis Mystery)

This book made me want to watch the movie Gettysburg again! The setting for this mystery is Gettysburg, in particular, a group of Civil War re-enactors who are staging a battle at Gettysburg. Our "detective" (Miranda Lewis) is a history text-book writer, who has been invited to this re-enactment by an old college friend and her father -- a stately, upper-class Virginian. One of the "soldiers" dies in battle -- which is not supposed to happen. Since the dead man is the estranged husband of the old-college-friend, Miranda manages to get involved. She suspects that this was not natural causes (a heart attack) but murder, and suspects that the killer was a re-enactor. First she has to establish that this was not a natural heart attack. In the meantime, she becomes aware that there are some illegal arms changing hands at this re-enactment -- is the death connected with these? There are a number of possible killers, because this is a strange group of people -- or at least some of the people are acting strangely. I found the whole world of Civil War re-enactment interesting, as were the tidbits about the battle of Gettysburg. My chief complaint was that the killer was so obvious that I was convinced it had to be a red herring. Since my initial belief that this person was the killer was based on my gut feelings rather than clues, other readers may not have this problem. But I prefer to be surprised when the killer is revealed -- which I was, but I was surprised that this person really was the killer and not a red herring.

Her roommate as an undergraduate at Stanford Ginny Longford Cross and her father Virginian Randall Longford invites Boston historian Miranda Lewis as their guest at a Gettysburg reenactment. Ginny's estranged husband, Wiley, a die hard reenactor who believes in 100 percent authenticity and willing to look war torn gaunt, will play a Confederate soldier at the event. At the gala, Wiley is accidentally shot and soon after dies of cardiac arrest, which is surprising since he had no heart trouble. While Ginny grieves her loss, Miranda makes inquiries among the Civil War participants after learning that the person who shot Wiley is also dead following a motorcycle-truck incident. As Miranda digs deep into what is going on at the reenactment, she is jeopardy of being the next victim of the Civil War though it is a hundred and forty years since Appomattox. Though the homicide occurs towards the middle of the book, readers will enjoy how MURDER AT GETTYSBURG provides insight as to what happens behind the scenes at a reenactment. The first half of plot also sets the tone on relationships between the key players. Once fans adjust to Miranda investigating a potential murder (a difficult issue of acceptance with most of the sub-genre tales), the entertaining amateur sleuth story line grips the audience until the heroine risks her life confronting the killer. Harriet Klausner